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Sherman was born Abraham Orovitz, to Jewish parents.[1] He was born and grew up in the small town of Vienna, Georgia, where his father was a dry-goods salesman.[2] Not long after graduating from Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, he became a professional actor.[3]

Sherman quickly built a reputation as a rewrite artist – his ability to take any script he was given and turn it into an absolute blockbuster. It was these skills that led him to much bigger and star-studded pictures.[3][5] Sherman was initially known as a "woman's director" during the mid '40's, but he eventually became a well-rounded filmmaker as his career went on.[2]

After a very successful Hollywood film career, Sherman ended his career in television. However, in 2004, he was the oldest of 21 individuals interviewed in the documentary film "Imaginary Witness," a work that chronicled sixty years of film-making that dealt in some way with the Holocaust.[6]

Sherman was married to Hedda Comorau from 1931–1984. He had two children with Comorau: a son, Eric Sherman, and a daughter, Hedwin Naimark.[7] He had a number of high-profile affairs during his life, including a three-year relationship with Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. In his memoir Studio Affairs: My Life as a Film Director, he went into detail about his relationship with Crawford, as well as his relationship with Rita Hayworth. During the last nine years of his life, he was in a romantic relationship with Francine York.[7]